Cirque PROM invites audience to relive the absurdities of high school
Jeanette Kelly | CBC News | Posted: April 10, 2015 5:38 PM | Last Updated: April 10, 2015
Based on high school prom, new cirque show explores the comedic side of adolescence
Krin Haglund is a circus performer who's moved from stints with Cirque Eloize and Cirque du Soleil to creating her own work.
Now she's expanded her very successful Fringe show, Cirque PROM, to include an international cast of characters.
They perform two nights this weekend at the Bain Mathieu.
Cirque PROM is inspired by the great expectations surrounding a high school prom.
Haglund imagined "reveling in the absurdities of teenage rebellion with mast circus performers as your date."
Her performers are graduates of the Cirque du Soleil, Les 7 Doigts de la Main, Cirque Eloize, and the Ecole Nationale de Cirque.
She calls it "a nutty, funny high-level circus show with a lot of heart, while being thoroughly entertaining."
Some of that heart comes direct from Australia with the break dance artist, Roya the Destroya.
Roya Hosini is a 26-year-old native of Melbourne who was born with only one leg.
She break dances using crutches and throws them off for some of her circles moves on the floor.
Roya breaks the ice with the audience in an opening monologue where she teases them saying,
"I know what you're wondering. You're wondering what my favourite subject is, or where I got my beautiful hair."
She ends with a hilarious story involving a great white shark and a kangaroo and leaves everyone still wondering what happened to her leg.
After taking gymnastics as a teen, Roya discovered break dancing and circus and realized that was where she could be herself and develop her own style of performance.
"There's no rules or guidelines. You can do whatever you want and I realized maybe that's the stream I want to go into," she said.
Haglund was bowled over by Roya's love of performance.
"When I was casting Cirque PROM I was looking for artists that are truly unique and none of the artists in Cirque PROM look like anybody else on stage," she said.
"They really present something really true and honest, very much themselves and the audience can identify with that. Roya is a great performer. She's so joyous."
Cirque PROM takes over the Bain Mathieu Friday and Saturday evenings. The show is followed by a dance party and the audience is invited to come in a prom dress and tux.